


Remembered

by SLWalker



Category: due South
Genre: AU, Post-Apocalyptic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-29
Updated: 2011-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:43:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First draft of the ds_snippets piece of the same name; that one got edited down to qualify, this is how it was first written.  Sequel to Arrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembered

It only took three days after Ray broke his leg for Turnbull to get restless; he paced the barely-livable vacation cottage like an animal in a cage, too-long legs making too-short work of the limited floor space, and Ray wondered how long it would be before he clawed his way out. Wondered how long it would be before whatever mercy kept him here couldn't hold up against the driven course.

Wondered if he shouldn't just open the door, and let the man go.

"Whaddayou remember about him?" Ray asked, on the fourth day, breaking the silence for the first time since he'd fallen and snapped a bone and even the futility of talking couldn't drown out the need to scream and babble when it was set and splinted. He didn't know why he asked. He thought about the door, and he thought about the frost settling on dirty windows.

The pacing halted for a moment, and everything felt too quiet again. Then, finally, Turnbull said, "Everything."

The sound of that formerly sunny tenor so rusty now from disuse was wrongwrong _wrong_ ; maybe it was being so still now in the dull throb of pain, but Ray thought a lot about things other than survival, and it was the first time in a very long time that he remembered that it _was_ wrong.

"Gonna remember me?" he asked, and he wanted to smirk or scowl or sigh.

There was another long moment, then the pacing started again. Too long a stride, too little floor. "Yes."

Poor bastard. Turnbull was still pretty young; early-to-mid thirties or so, right in his prime. Even living on the rough hadn't done him in too bad; a little leaner, a little harder looking, a lot scruffier. But he had _years_ left, lots of years, long years. He was pretty young, healthy, a canny hunter now that he had to in order to survive. And just damn determined enough not to die, too. He had decades left in him.

And that was a long time to live alone, searching for something you were never gonna find.

"Go, then. Get outta here. Good luck."

The pacing stopped again and Ray met that steady, impassive gaze, and it made him think of the wild animals that he sometimes saw peering out of the trees, the ones who had been born after humans were all gone and didn't have any reason to fear them anymore, any reason to hide, or jump, or cower, or cringe. Frase woulda been proud. Turnbull woulda found that pride to be utterly meaningless. Frase woulda given it anyway.

Ray was absolutely not surprised when he drifted back awake, still aching, to find himself alone. Most of their provisions had been left. There was a whole lot of firewood for the hastily repaired fireplace. There was his rifle and bullets, and there was the survival book that they'd needed in those earliest days, worn and torn and just readable enough.

It was going to be a long winter, but there was no pausing the flight of arrows. Turnbull had a whole lot of years left. It was a long time to live alone, looking for the impossible.

But the alternative was even worse. Even Ray knew that.

He settled in to wait. For life. For death. For his own course to take him wherever it would, now alone. He had no intentions of just giving up and putting his rifle in his mouth. He could make due for awhile on what was left until he healed enough to hunt or forage himself. Nothing that lives really wants to die.

Two months later, he was packing up what was left to the renewed sound of too-long legs pacing, pacing, pacing. Remembering. Remembered.


End file.
